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Turner: A lesson from the Archers on raising chickens

Carol Turner

Enterprise Columnist

Posted:
12/01/2013 01:00:00 AM MST

Carol Turner On History

Now that Broomfield has voted to welcome backyard chickens into the fold, there might be a few lessons our new "farmers" can learn from early Broomfielders. One of the first families to raise chickens in this area was the Archer family.

Back in the 1930s, Old Town Broomfield offered a small café called the Bungalow Lunch. Catering mostly to truckers passing through town on U.S. 287, the place was run by Carl and Eva Archer. Carl's parents, Elbert and Mary Archer, ran a nearby farm.

At some point during the Depression, Carl and Eva decided to pursue their fortunes in California. Together with a Boulder couple, Bill and Maudie Brewer, they packed up their kids and cars and headed west. Carl and Eva brought their young daughter, Evonne. Bill and Maudie had two children, Beverly and Burton. For sustenance during the trip, they secured several live chickens to the roof of their car. Out in California, the Archers eventually separated. Carl returned to Broomfield, while Eva stayed with little Evonne. However, times were tough and Eva was obliged to send her little girl periodically back to Broomfield to live with her father and grandparents.

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Evonne "Duke" Damiana (nee Archer), today of Louisville, has fond memories of those young years on her grandparents' farm. She says every spring the Broomfield post office was a hubbub of activity, because all the farmers were receiving the new year's supply of live chicks, which they ordered from Montgomery Wards or Sears Roebuck. A typical order might contain 300 to 400 chicks, each chick costing 8 cents, all packed into partitioned cardboard boxes. Newly hatched, the chicks arrived by train and the boxes were carried into the post office and stacked high, waiting for the various farmers to come along and pick them up. The boxes, Duke said, were about 4-by-4 feet, with half-inch air holes.

Once the farmers got the chicks home, they'd put them in brooder houses. These wooden "houses" had a bit of sand on the floor, a kerosene heater in the middle to keep them warm and a chimney on the outside. The chicks would be provided with trays of food and water, but many of them died because they trampled one another. Duke recalls Grandmother (Mary) Archer sitting in a chair near the chick house, watching to make sure they didn't trample each other. This went on for about the first week after their arrival. The chicks were extremely delicate, because they were so recently hatched. After they'd grown a bit, they were allowed into the fenced yard. At night, Mary brought them back inside, where they were protected from prowling cats, raccoons and other hungry predators.

Duke says Grandmother Archer raised 200 to 300 chickens per year. Not surprisingly, chicken was on the menu almost every night — each one killed and plucked by Grandmother Archer.

One wonders if Broomfield's contemporary backyard chicken enthusiasts will be doing the same.

Carol Turner is the author of "Notorious Jefferson County: Frontier Murder & Mayhem," published by The History Press. Contact her at broomfieldcat@comcast.net

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